The Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, together with her deputies and heads, held on 2 June 2020 collegiums of prosecutors from all prosecutorial departments in the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, namely from the Special Department for War Crimes, Special Department for Organised Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption and Terrorism and Department III.
In order to observe the measures of health protection and social distance, separate collegiums were held with prosecutors from the above-mentioned departments.
The Chief Prosecutor informed the prosecutors that during the pandemic, a Coordination Team had been formed on 17 March 2020 to act on the prevention and control of the spread of coronavirus – COVID 19.
Its members were Deputy Chief Prosecutors and heads of prosecutorial departments, as well as heads of administrative departments in the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, and it held a total of 6 working meetings.
In this period instructions on actions necessary for the proper functioning of the institution were adopted and decisions of the relevant authorities and the HJPC BiH were monitored in order to harmonise the decisions of the Coordination Team with the instructions and directions given by the relevant institutions.
During the COVID 19 pandemic, the Prosecutor’s Office, in accordance with the instructions of the HJPC BiH, worked intensively on cases related to criminal offences endangering the health and life of citizens, public procurements, as well as on detention cases and cases with pressing deadlines. In this period, four indictments were issued for criminal offences in the field of terrorism, in cases relating to illegal migrations and smuggling of persons and in other cases in which reports were received during the prosecutor’s work while on duty.
After the decision of the HJPC BiH that the Chief Prosecutors should organise their work in the respective Prosecutor’s Offices in accordance with the changed circumstances, all prosecutors and employees started working full time as of 18 May 2020, with the observation of prescribed protection measures.
Also, the Chief Prosecutor informed the prosecutors that she had attended the session of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH on 28 May 2020 in which she had answered the inquiries of the delegates, after which they had taken note of the Report on the Operation of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH for 2017 and 2018.
The collegiums also discussed the impact of the pandemic situation on the implementation of the Action Plan for 2020.
The Chief Prosecutor thanked all members of the Coordination Team, prosecutors and employees, for their professionalism and responsibility in fulfilling their work obligations and activities in difficult conditions during the Covid 19 pandemic, as well as all to security and police agencies, and expressed her expectations that in the coming period a larger number of the activities planned for 2020 would be carried out.
